


World Conqueror

by gelfling



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Manipulative Charles, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1708748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelfling/pseuds/gelfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the beach divorce had ended with Magneto being captured, and Xavier proving that telepathy is one of the most dangerous  abilities on the planet when he pulls out all the stops.  </p><p>Mainly, I just wanted to see how far Xavier could be the villain while still (hopefully) staying in character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Conqueror

In another time and place, Erik thinks, Charles would have made an excellent general. It’s not his innate skill with strategy or even his inherent knack for manipulation (deny and hide it though Xavier tires, he plays people like dice, like the world’s luckiest gambler). It’s not even Xavier’s natural trick of handling people like weapons, each distinct and flawed until he’s honed each student into a soldier every army will covet.

 _Teaching, Erik_ , Xavier would insist, deny. _They need to be trained, to know what they can do._

No, none of those things really make Xavier any more dangerous than Erik’s other taskmasters (Shaw) and monsters (Shaw), because Erik is used to violence subsuming his world, of every action and thought and word edged for a purpose.

“I know what you’re looking for, my friend,” Charles had told him, only a few weeks ago. “I’ll help you find it.”

“I know what you’ve been through, and I’m sorry,” Charles tells Angel, Alex, and Hank. “I have a home where you’ll be safe.”

“I can stop your war,” Charles whispers to Moira, to all the humans. “We can protect you like you can only imagine.”

In total, Charles says nothing truly original, nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary, and none of it would matter or work except that everyone believes him, even Erik, who knows he _should_ know better, but can’t help it.

Charles has such a way with words.

At least when the devil had offered Mesultha immortality, the devil stated his terms up front. 

***  
Erik cradles the devil-- _no, not the devil, he would never be so naïve, so blind_ —in his arms on a Caribbean beach and wonders why they had never found a mutant with a healing ability. It would singularly useful ( _would Charles die? The bullet hadn’t been deep, his organs should be safe_ ) in the oncoming war with the humans _(he’d never learned how to repair the body, only break it._ )

“Erik,” Charles digs his nails into Erik’s shoulder, gasping and drawn with pain. “Erik.”

“I told you,” Erik mutters, awkwardly gratified to be right at such a sacrifice. “You’ll be fine, it’ll be all right—keep your distance!” The last he barks at McTaggert (the human) and doesn’t quite catch “I’m sorry Erik, I’m sorry” as Charles relaxes his death grip on Erik’s shoulder. Fingers card through the hair on the nape of his neck, push against the metal helmet so heavy under the broiling Caribbean sun.

“I’m so sorry.”

***  
Charles can’t go far from him, of course. Erik isn’t Shaw, not mentally, not yet, but Charles doesn’t even dare sleep until after Erik is drugged to the gills. He’s only vaguely aware of what happens when Charles rides his mind, moves his legs and arms to get Erik where Charles wants him to be.

He’s not sure if the others—Shaw’s gang—fought or simply left, if they’ve been abandoned by the children or even if the sun has simply gone out. Light plays across his eyes but he cannot process it, and all other senses are submerged deep underwater a long way from everywhere.

(Charles what have you done?)

Have the children run yet? He hopes so.

(What have you done?)

(I’m so sorry)

He was wrong to call Charles naïve.

***  
Wind lifts his hair as the breeze rolls over the Statue of Liberty. From here New York is a graph of sky scrapers and glass, not the mess of concrete and stench Erik knows it to be. “You needn’t apologize again,” he tells the waters below the railing. He’s never been New York before, but he’s seen enough postcards of the Statue welcoming the Old World’s orphans. “I heard you the first time.”

“We need to talk Erik,” Charles has steel in his voice instead of vinegar apologies—Erik approves, almost grins, and is annoyed at how much Charles might (could) mean to him. 

“There’s nothing to talk about. You know everything about me Charles. When have I ever forgiven anyone, just because it would be the easy choice?” Or hard. Erik doesn’t usually differentiate because he doesn’t care, but it would dangerously easy to forgive Xavier, to go back to old times.

“I know almost everything about you,” and Charles is trying to grin, like this is funny or they’re friends again (never, not even that, comrades-in-arms once, maybe). “But what I remember best is how much you hate to stay in one place. How much you hate for things not to change.”

“You can’t do this forever,” if this was a contest of control, Erik’s thrown the match—the sky goes gray, the heat oppressive and scorching. “You’ll break or fold and all I have to do is wait. You can barely hold it together as it is.”  
 _  
You did this to me._

He’d known it was possible, had considered the damaging applications of Charles’ power (as destructive as Alex’s, as his own, but far more subtle), but had never really considered Charles might turn against his own kind. Against him.

“No,” Charles agrees, strolling down the steps from the Statue’s lantern, wind lifting his hair, “I can’t do this forever. I don’t want to this forever; I didn’t want to do this to start with—”

“But you did!” Erik shouldn’t have felt as betrayed as he did, should have known better to turn his back on Xavier even for an instant, nothing was like it should be and there was nothing he could do about it but wait. “It doesn’t _matter_ what you _wanted_ or what you should’ve done you _did this_!”

“To you? Is that the part that bothers you?”

It’s not quite like being slapped, being reminded how much stronger Xavier is than…than anyone else Erik knows. Xavier could do this to the whole world (the thought had run across Erik’s more than once, watching Charles and Hank play with the machine and meet every human and mutant in the 10,000,000 square kilometers of the US, like it was all a _game_ , as if there were no consequences to their actions), and Erik had already considered how best to convince Charles that it would be the humane thing to do.

But Charles hadn’t done it to the rest of the world—he’d done it to Erik.

“So we attack our own kind, now? They drew first blood—they attacked first and you expect me to _not _be bothered by this?” _This betrayal? I defended you and you turned on me..___

__No, Charles doesn’t need his ability to keep Erik in line, though Erik would never admit it; not when a few words can have him on the defensive, not when he has to back away from an illusion in his own mind as Charles wanders closer to him._ _

__“No, I find your reaction very healthy and, honestly, reassuring. Because, you know, I was worried you’d gone a bit mad when you tried to declare war on two of the most powerful nations in the world. They would’ve killed us all by now, if you’d succeeded.”_ _

__“They already hate—”_ _

__“They _fear_ us, Erik,” Charles scowls at him while nearly hanging over the railing, looking more like a put-out teenager than Erik would’ve believed possible. “And besides a few exceedingly grainy photo of an airborne submarine, they have no proof we even exist. The majority of the CIA and KGB already believe it to be a fake.”_ _

__Charles glances at Erik’s expression and rolls his eyes (still young, still so young, all of them, he was only one to walk the world and realize this couldn’t last, that they had to _fight_ to keep it and Erik didn’t know how to make him _understand_ ), “And it was nothing _overt_ , just a few suggestions that they wanted to hear _anyway._ Trick of the light or the enemy in a high-pressure situation. We’re safe.”_ _

__“For now,” and this is the naivety that always makes Erik underestimate Charles, depresses him beyond credible belief. “But not for long. None of which changes my mind Charles. Not unless you mean to break it from the inside.”_ _

__The wind moves Charles’ hair as he deliberately doesn’t look away from the fake water below them._ _

__“I know you could.” Erik can see spots—not quite streaks, not yet—of gray in Charles’ brown hair, even though this is an illusion, a dream, the war is taking its toll. Not so secretly, Erik is pleased. “You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”_ _

__Charles doesn’t say anything, as a good general should._ _

__He doesn’t even look at Erik, before the dream dissipates and Erik goes back to drugged unconsciousness._ _

__***  
“It’s tempting, you know. I used to when I was a child; trick the staff into making more pudding, for example, or fool my stepfather into believing that it really _had_ been a gust of wind that had knocked off the family portrait and shattered the Ming vase and not Raven and I playing.”_ _

__“It’s easy, in the start. But being a mutant doesn’t really exempt one from the rules, and eventually all that lying catches up. Even with me.”_ _

__“I wish I could make you understand. You’re not the only one who wants to be heard, not the only one with a voice to speak._ _

__***_ _

__Charles can’t…feel properly, not anymore. His spine was well and truly severed, as he tells Erik, but that doesn’t make him any less…alive. Any less human._ _

___Mutant_ , Erik corrects, automatically, not really protesting when Charles brushes his lips against his jaw, his ear, as they stand and touch in the shower the way they never quite got a chance too…_ _

__Erik says nothing when the dream ends, neither of them ever mentions it, and wonders if perhaps the dream was finally one of his own, and not some odd bit of frustration Charles has fobbed off on him again._ _

__***  
 _You’ll have to kill me first.__ _

__I would have you at my side._ _

___And I would have you dead, for what you’ve done to me._ _ _

__***  
Ironically—or not—it’s the humans who catalyze Erik’s release._ _

__One of the government’s more militaristic agents convinces one of the new students, one Erik never met, never faced trial by fire—shy, young, insecure and just not _fitting in_ —to betray the location of Charles’ beloved school and childhood home, causing it later to be raided and strafed by gunfire. _ _

__Erik isn’t sure what the casualty count is on their side, or even how long he’d been asleep before a sharp pain rips through Charles—and so, through Erik, along with clips and flashes of all of Charles’ changes to the school—and Erik finds himself in bed with an IV in his arm and shouts down the hall._ _

__Erik slides the drip needle out of his elbow, cynically amused that their great weakness—both his, and Charles’—comes from their own kind, not humans, and they are both so very _bad_ at defending themselves properly. Erik will have to do something about that._ _

__He tries to stand in his bare feet, and has to sit down just as quickly—his knees won’t lock, and he feels dizzy and nauseated._ _

__A few deep, measured breaths later, Erik reaches out with his mind—all those months and years of playing mental tag and tease with Charles coming to his aid—and feels for iron, for its solid taste and reassuring gradient, seeks out the flavor of gunmetal and finds it in _spades.__ _

__He can’t tell who he’s shooting though, that’s trouble, but he can feel out the shape of all those Browning's and Beretta’s, the odd hand grenade and—of course—the steel toed boots._ _

__It takes longer and requires more concentration to make the guns jam and slam backwards, to pull the grenade pins one by one, and fold the toe protection inward so the lucky soldiers now have their feet sliced in two, but Erik is far too exhausted to pull the automobiles from the garage and swing them through the house like battering rams. He’s not entirely sure how long he can stay sitting upright._ _

__He searches for his helmet with his mind, and digs his fingers into the mattress. To his complete lack of surprise, he finds it lying in the courtyard accompanied by an upended wheelchair._ _

__If he allowed Charles to die here, among the fruits he strived so _hard_ to bear, it would only be appropriate. _ _

__Trembling, dressed only loose jogging pants and a threadbare T-shirt, Erik leaves the battlefield mostly unscathed._ _

__***  
He’s able to locate food, clothes, and a newspaper the next morning. It’s bitter cold in Winchester County, and the crinkle of paper between his fingers makes Erik feel more civilized than he has…in ages._ _

__It’s March, 1963. Charles Xavier has lost him four months of his life._ _

__***  
Erik never learns how many mutant youngsters lost their life that night, or their freedom. It’s not the sort of thing that appears in human newspapers, and while Erik…regrets the loss of potential, empathizes with the captured survivors in human hands, he tells himself he doesn’t feel guilty for not doing more. For not staying and fighting, for not taking a stand, for not defending what he and Charles spent so much time _making_ …_ _

__He leans back in his chair on the balcony, soaking in the sun and the scenery of the Italian mountains. His Italian was never as good as his English, or even his French—he spends a lot of his spare time talking with the locals when he goes to buy food, trying to improve his accent._ _

__He’s discovered a weakness for Italian coffee—it’s nowhere _near_ as good the Italians say it is, but far better than anything he ever had in America. He makes a point to keep his helmet in the shade—even in the chilly altitude, it can heat his head too quickly in the sun._ _

__Erik knows, however things turned out, he could’ve turned the tide, made a difference. Murder and mayhem are what he does, after all. None of the others can get the hang of it._ _

__But he doesn’t believe that his presence was a secret. His captivity, his incapacitation…nothing stays secret long. And while none of the children had been Charles, none of them had fought for Magneto either._ _

__He has no time for traitors, and even less for indifferent good men._ _

__He would like to know what happened to Mystique. He will likely never seek her out, or see her again._ _

__“Not that I don’t admire the scenery, but you realize you’re punishing more than just me, don’t you? For all that—”_ _

__“I will gag you Charles. I will gag you and tie you to the bed and feed you night and day from a drip, the same way you did with me.”_ _

__“Don’t be ridiculous; you had solid food and you know it,” Charles waves the threat away like a fussy old aunt waving away her nightly medicine. “You wouldn’t have recovered your strength so quickly if you hadn’t. For all you know you sat at the dinner table every night with the rest of us.”_ _

__Erik doesn’t answer. He _doesn’t_ know, and that grinds on him—more than he wants to let on. If the children had believed him a willing participant, the obliging puppet Charles could maneuver…he may have made the wrong choice. The blame still falls to Charles, of course, but…_ _

__“You’ll never know,” Charles says quietly, the nemesis and conqueror Erik knows him to be. It’s far too easy to picture their future together, forever ripping each other apart and second guessing themselves, tripping one another up. “And why else keep me close, if not for my melodious voice?”_ _

__Yes, it’s far too easy for Erik to see the future; to see how this will end as it was always meant._ _

__Despite himself, Erik’s lips twitch into a grin, growing wider as Charles scowls at him._ _

__“People are _dead_ \--”_ _

__“Relax Charles,” Erik slides his fingers over Charles’ wrist comfortingly, holds him and feels his pulse jump and his eyes widen. “Yes, there’s no one around for miles and miles—I’ve made certain of it. And, yes, without your little machine, you can’t reach that far, not far enough to bring help, much less find out which continent you’re on.”_ _

__“I know we’re in Europe, I know we’re close to the ocean—”_ _

__Erik squeezes Charles’ wrist, hard enough to bruise._ _

__“And people are dead. Our people, and theirs.” He waits, to see what Charles will say, if Charles will look at him again with that defiance, with that angry chill. Charles does nothing, and so Erik lets go of his wrists reluctantly. Stalemate, one in a very long line of stalemates, and hardly the last; they'll never agree, and Erik...for various reasons, will not let Charles go. “More will follow; this I promise you.”_ _


End file.
